Ranma sat at the table in the Captain's formal dining room. Most captains in the Royal Manitcoran Navy held regular formal dinners with their officers. Some of them only invited the senior officers, but Captain Harrington made it a practice to also invite the junior officers in rotation. Ranma was of the opinion that this was one of the signs of a good captain. As the most junior of the officers on the ship, she had made an effort to be among the first ones there. A new ensign could hardly afford to be late to anything, but especially not a formal dinner with a retired admiral attending. She had actually arrived first and the Captain's steward had given her an approving nod.

She watched the attendees arrive and take seats. They were a mixture of ship's officers and members of Admiral Courvosier's delegation. She noted that her end of the table, which contained the more junior officers and delegates, filled up more quickly. Finally, the Captain and the Admiral arrived at approximately the same time and took their seats. One of the mid-ranking delegates slid into place after them, slightly flushed.

The Captain caught her eye and tapped her glass. Ah, it was Ranma's turn to act. She had not been sure what the Captain's preference for the signal to perform the Loyalty Oath. As the most junior officer present, it fell to her by RMN tradition.

She stood. All eyes fell on her. "Ladies and gentlemen," she said strongly and raised her glass. Let it never be said that Ranma Saotome did not like attention. "The Queen!"

The rest of the attendees raised their glasses and proclaimed, "The Queen!"

The ritual competed, Ranma sat down. She noticed Admiral Courvosier lean over and whisper something to the Captain. He had the look of nostalgia about him. Houseman, the Admiral's second-in-command, and the lead economist in the delegation heard the Captain's response to the Admiral's comment and spoke up. Ranma recognized Houseman's type. He was an "Ivory Tower" academic that sneered at the military as a matter of doctrine.

Houseman stated that diplomacy was more important than strategy or tactics, while the Captain replied that the Navy got involved after diplomacy failed. Houseman referred to the writings of a pre-Diaspora soldier which the Captain then expounded on and drew from other military historians to back up her point.

The Captain essentially demolished Houseman, but he was like the academic equivalent of Kuno. While not incompetent in his chosen field, he attempted to punch way above his weight class and could not recognize defeat. Ranma could almost imagine him shouting, "I fight on!"

While Houseman was correct that in an ideal universe the military would not be necessary, he seemed to believe that anyone could be talked into rationally pursuing economic trade in order to better their situation. The ironic thing was that his beliefs would be proven incorrect the first time he ran into someone as pigheaded as he was.

Houseman liked to play at being a historian, but as Captain Harrington, who appeared to be a real amateur historian, showed, history is full of people who "acted against their own best interest" to pursue war and terror. Most of the table looked at Houseman as if he had sprouted a second head when he implied that Grayson and Masada would lay down their arms, if only the military did not muck things up.

Ranma would like to have joined in, especially since several of the sources, the Captain referred to were from close to her birth era, or were still popular then like Sun Tzu. Even her Pop had not thought Sun Tzu was a waste of time. However, she was a lowly ensign and they did not break into conversations with captains and senior diplomats if they knew what was good for them. Instead she listened and responded when her neighbors asked her questions.

Ranma's fingers flew over the console. He was at the main tactics station, directing missile fire onto the two asteroids that housed the Endicott system's outer defensive stations. They knew from the Graysons' intelligence reports that the asteroid belt hid light attack craft. The emplacements had launched missiles at them when they had approached the belt in order to scan for craft. Midshipwoman Esther Rosenberg sat beside him at the other tactics station controlling Fearless's defenses. That was the seat that Ranma actually preferred because he was an adrenaline junkie, unless they were in energy range. However, current RMN doctrine favored missile engagements over close-range energy duels with lasers and grasers.

Rosenberg shot him a glance and he smiled at her. She was doing a good job with the counter missiles. Not that the Masadans were giving them much of a challenge.

The first salvo of Ranma's missiles reached the asteroid emplacements and detonated at the appropriate standoff and x-ray lasers punched through the walls of the emplacements. He kept an eye on the chronometer. The second salvo hit the asteroids. The Masadans had been launching every 20 seconds, but it had been 30 since their last launch.

"I think the emplacements are done, Sir," he said. "They're over 10 seconds late according to their previous pattern."

"Keep alert, Saotome," Harris replied. "They may be playing possum."

Ranma nodded. Even though they hugely outmatched the Masadans, there was no reason to play it stupid. As the third salvo impacted the asteroids, an alert flashed over his console as about a dozen new gravity sources lit up inside the belt.

"I've got 11 LAC impeller signatures near the edge of the asteroid field," he said as they started to move toward the Fearless. "They must have been on standby. They're moving toward us in a rough formation four across and three deep."

"Light them up, Saotome," Harris said. "One row at a time."

Conventional wisdom said that you concentrated your fire, but light attack craft lacked sidewalls to protect them and even their impeller bands were weak protection compared to a heavy cruiser like the Fearless. The Fearless, like its sister Star Knight cruisers, carried 12 missile launchers in its broadside. Against the Masadan LACs, three missiles each should be more than enough, seeing as they were expected to have very little, if any, electronic countermeasures or other active defenses.

"Missile launch!" he called out as 33 missiles leapt from the charging LACs. "Twenty seconds to range." According to the Graysons, a typical Masadan LAC had 24 single-launch missile cells. Their fire control, however limited them to three at a time.

Rosenberg launched their first set of eight counter missiles as Ranma was preparing to launch their second salvo at the Masadans. The Manticoran missiles had greater acceleration, so they reached the Masadans first. Ranma's sensors reported impeller failures in all four of his targets. He smirked. Seconds later the Masadan's salvo came in range of Rosenberg's counter missiles. She had managed to get two salvos of counter missiles in. The first set she had launched had accelerated more slowly at first so that they hit the Masadan missiles in mass. The Manticoran missiles picked off 10 of the Masadans' 33 and a further 8 lost lock. Rosenberg's fingers flew over her console as she tweaked the computer's point-defense programming.

The remaining 7 LACs launched another 21 missiles as Ranma prepared to launch his third and final salvo. If any remained after that, they would be within energy range. As soon as Ranma launched his broadside, the ship rolled in order to interpose its impeller wedge to the Masadan missiles. While normally a Star Knight heavy cruiser would not fear LACS, the Masadans had managed to gather a relatively impressive number of them. Of the remaining 15 missiles, 8 of them wasted themselves against the impenetrable impeller band of the Fearless's belly. Point-defense lasers picked off all but one of the remaining. The last missile detonated and its bomb-powered lasers punched into the sidewall of the Fearless only to be deflected just enough to miss the ship itself. Rosenberg sighed in relief.

Ranma's second salvo reached the Masadans as the Fearless rolled back around to be able to get good sensor readings on the LACs and to be able to fire as needed. This time one of the LACs survived. "One LAC from the second row survives, Sir," he informed Harris.

"We'll get it with energy weapons when they enter our envelop," Harris replied.

In space, there was no "turning on a yen" as he would have said in his youth. Changing direction required acceleration and bleeding off velocity in a specific direction took time.

Rosenberg's counter missiles picked off 11 of the second salvo of Masadan missiles and 6 of them lost lock. The remaining four were easily picked off by the point-defense lasers. Harris did not bother to roll the ship this time as he wanted to get a good shot at the remaining LAC of the second row as it flew by.

Ranma's third salvo picked off the three LACs of the third row. He watched his display to see what the last LAC was doing. "It's vectoring toward us!" he exclaimed. "I think it wants to ram!"

"Fire when you have a good shot, Saotome," Harris said.

"Yes, sir."

The LAC was coming in at them straight as an arrow, with very little evasion attempted. Ranma quite easily blew it out of space with his grasers.

"Good work, everyone," Harris said. "This ends the simulation."

The simulation was mainly for the benefit of the three middies, but Lieutenant Harris had asked several of the junior officers to participate in order to fill all the slots in the auxiliary bridge. As the Assistant Tactical Officer, Harris was the primary trainer for the Midshipmen. Captain Harrington was very much in favor of her crew running simulations to keep sharp, so it was a no-brainer to help out.

"Does the Captain or the Admiral think this is the type of situation we can run into out here?" asked Midshipman Hernandez, who had been running Communications during the drill.

"I did run the scenario by the Captain and she said it was plausible," Harris replied.

"The Masadans would really try and kamikaze a RMN ship?" asked Holtz, the Midshipman who had been at Astrogation asked.

Ranma frowned. He disliked that practically the only Japanese word other than a few martial arts terms to make it into Manticoran English was used in such a derogatory fashion. Some of his classmates had had great uncles or even grandfathers who had been kamikaze pilots. It had not been super common, but common enough that pretty much everyone knew several people who had a relative that had been one. Like most Japanese of his generation, he was proud of the courage, skill, and victories of his people during the Second World War, while at the same time embarrassed and ashamed of the atrocities committed.

"All the reports we've gotten on the Masadans indicate that a large proportion of them are highly fanatical," Harris replied. "Kamikaze attacks are not out of the realm of possibilities."

Holtz snorted in response.

"I would not disparage someone sacrificing themselves for their star nation, Midshipman," Ranma responded. "That is not the exclusive prerogative of fanatics. The RNM itself has the example of Commodore Saganami's last stand."

Harris nodded. "Ensign Saotome is correct. Our own Captain Harrington's defense of the Basilisk System was a near thing. The RNM has a tradition of courage and sacrifice, however, we would hope that none of you will need to pay that price—certainly not to needlessly throw your lives away."

Lieutenant Harris moved on to discussing the things that they had done well and the things that might be improved.

Ranma examined the schedule for the gym on his datapad. Someone had scheduled time at 0400 every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with gravity at Sphinxian levels and it was marked for martial arts. Sphinx's gravity was 1.35 times Earth standard. RMN ships were kept at Manticore standard gravity which was almost the same as Earth's at 1.01 G. There was a good chance that the one who had scheduled the time was the Captain since she was a Sphinxian and Gunny had told him she was a Coup de Vitesse aficionado. However, the time was marked "open" rather than "private," so he thought he would drop in and join whomever it was. Seeing as it was Tuesday, he would stop by tomorrow morning. Training at Manticoran gravity levels is making you soft, Boy! ran through his mind with his father's voice and inflection. He snorted. His pop's mannerisms were a lot funnier now that they only existed in his memory.

Ranma arrived at the gym at 0358. The Manticore day lasted 22 hours and 27 minutes. The Sphinx day lasted 25 hours, 37 minutes, and 12 seconds. The Gryphon day lasted 22 hours, 42 minutes, and 36 seconds. As a compromise, the RMN used the standard "T-day" which had 24 hours for its clocks. This also had the advantage of syncing up the daily time with the "T-calendar" which was used to measure age or long periods of time, even on Manticore. The planetary calendars were only used in day-to-day life—for things measured in hours or less, while things that were measured in days or more tended to use the T-calendar—except for certain official functions like the anniversary of the landing on Manticore. Sphinxian school kids liked to complain about their longer school days that happened so that they did not fall behind due to their days lasting three hours longer than Manticore's and Gryphon's.

As she entered she felt the gravity jump up. The Captain turned away from the console. The treecat on her shoulder bleaked and she looked and saw Ranma.

"Ah, Ensign Saotome," she said. "I didn't see you come in or I would have given you a warning about the gravity increasing."

"It's not a problem, Captain," Ranma responded. "It's why I'm here. Training at Manticoran gravity is just not the same."

"Your records state that you came from Old Earth before you arrived on Sphinx," the Captain said. "Did you have a hard time adjusting?"

"I certainly noticed the difference," Ranma admitted, "but it didn't take me long to adjust." She did not mention that it only took moments due to her training, since she did not want the Captain to think she was a braggart.

Further conversation was interrupted by a new arrival. Ranma noticed that the Captain's treecat had noticed the arrival even before Ranma herself did. The new arrival was a tall, muscled black man wearing exercise clothes with the RMMC logo on the shirt.

"Hello, Sergeant Hardy," the Captain said.

The sergeant nodded to both of them. "Captain, Ensign." Evidently, he knew who she was. That was not really unexpected. With the way the rumor mill on ships worked, probably only the more clueless of the diplomatic mission had not heard of her and received a description of bother her forms.

"Sergeant," Ranma responded.

"Well, Captain," Hardy said. "With the Ensign here you won't be needing me."

Harrington gave Ranma an appraising look. "Have you sparred with Ensign Saotome then, Sergeant?"

"No, but I heard about her match with the Gunny," he responded.

"Oh, and how'd you do against Gunny Babcock?" Captain Harrington asked her.

Ranma gestured to Hardy. "I'm curious as to what the rumor mill says, if you don't mind, Sergeant."

"Rumor says that you won and that Gunny chastised you for playing with her," Hardy said.

Ranma shrugged. "Like I told the Gunny, if you're not having fun, then you're doing it wrong. No insult to Gunny Babcock, because she's very good, but the intensity of training I underwent means that no one I run into in the Services is likely to be able to keep up with me if I go full out. That's alright though, because I like to keep it at my opponent's level to keep things interesting."

"Well, if you can beat Gunny Babcock easily, I'm not likely to give you a challenge either, Ensign Saotome," the Captain said. "I have to say that I'm impressed that someone as young as you can manage it. As you said, Gunny Babcock is very good."

"She said the same about you, Ma'am," Ranma said with a smile. "As to my youth, I sacrificed a lot to get as good as I am by my age. Many would say that it wouldn't be worth it, but I do love the Art, so I can't complain too much."

Ranma and the Captain both began to warm up. Hardy sat down against the wall.

"I don't want to steal all your time, Sergeant," Ranma said. "Don't feel like you have to sit this out."

Hardy waved her off. "Don't worry about it, Ensign. I enjoy watching talented martial artists in action. I'll take my turn another day."

After they finished warming up, Ranma faced off against the Captain. As was her custom, Ranma let Harrington make the first move. She did not have to wait long, since as she had heard, the Captain favored Coup de Vitesse, which was a martial art that primarily consisted of direct strikes and taking the initiative and keeping it. She started off at the same level that she had used against Gunny Babcock since the Gunny had said that their skill level was comparable.

Ranma dodged a series of blows and then redirected one to get a feel for the Captain's strength. Sphinxians in general were stronger and faster than other people from the Star Kingdom due to growing up on a "heavy world." The effect varied for reasons that Ranma did not know. The Captain appeared to be on the upper end of the scale for her build, which was tall and athletic. Overall, the Captain was stronger and faster than the Gunny, which was mildly surprising since Babcock was stockier and more powerfully built, but the Marine non-com was more skilled, although only by a small amount. Still, if she were a gambling person, she would wager Babcock won more matches. As the match progressed she was surprised to find herself learning some new tricks from the Captain too. This pleased her, since she had no desire to serve under a Captain who only knew how to charge straight ahead.

Deciding to end the round, Ranma deflected a strike from Harrington hard enough to put her off balance and then put her on the mat with a leg sweep.

She walked over and gave the Captain a hand up. Harrington took it and levered herself up. The action should have pulled Ranma over due to her much shorter frame, but she powered her up with pure strength.

"You're much stronger than you look, Ensign," Harrington commented with a raised eyebrow.

"So are you, Captain," Ranma returned.

"I grew up on Sphinx," the Captain returned. "Are you sure you grew up on Pre-Diaspora Old Earth?"

Ranma laughed congenially and nodded. "It's all in the training."

"Gunny Babcock was right in that fighting you is both invigorating and infuriating," Captain Harrington said.

"Oh, so you did talk to the Gunny?" Ranma asked.

Harrington smiled. "You think martial artists don't gossip?"

Ranma laughed. "Oh, I certainly know that we do."

"I just wanted to see how you'd react going into the match if I played ignorant," the Captain said.

Ranma waved her off. "Did Gunny tell you what I did to Sergeant Cleveland?"

Harrington smiled at her. "She did." She glanced over at Hardy. "She approved. She said the boys needed to be kept on their toes."

Hardy laughed. "Cleveland was embarrassed, but appreciated that you didn't rub it in his face, Ensign."

"Ready to go again, Ensign?" Harrington asked.

"Yes, Ma'am," she replied.

"Can I call you Ranma, Ensign?" the Captain asked.

"Yes, Ma'am," she replied again. There was only one real response to that. In any military, you adapted to your superior's quirks unless they were against the Regs. Her limited observations of the Captain had indicated that she preferred to refer to her officers informally. Ranma preferred it that way too.

"Good," the Captain responded. "Call me Honor when we're off duty."

Ranma nodded. "Sure, Honor." On a ship, you were never really completely off duty, but she would call the Captain by her given name in the gym, at least. Navigating though social niceties was like being in a fight with lots of strange rules and maneuvers. It had been hard for Ranma to understand that, but once she had it was not any different than any other style of fighting. She wished she had realized that back in Nerima. It would have made handling Nabiki and Cologne much easier.

The two of them bowed and began their second match.

Author's Note: I wanted to update all my stories that hadn't been updated in almost a year, so have an update of The Honor of the Wild Horse, formerly known as The Mustang and the Salamander. The reasons for the name change are on the previous chapter and/or first page.

The book this story is based on, The Honor of the Queen, is available for free on the publisher's, Baen, website along with the first novel in the series, On Basilisk Station. Baen and Weber do this for promotional reasons. I'm pointing this out in case you want to read Honor's debate with Houseman which takes place at the beginning of Chapter Three. The incident is somewhat important to the plot of the original story. I thought it deserved to be mentioned since the character, Ranma is replacing, Wolcott, was present. However, I didn't think Ranma would change it and didn't want to repeat it word for word here, hence the summary.

Jumping into a simulation without explaining that it's a simulation is something Weber does every couple of books or so. I thought I'd do it here as a tribute of sorts, but wasn't attempting to really fool anyone, for one because Weber jumps around into minor character's PoVs which makes the trick a lot more believable which is something I don't intend to do.